Heroine

“Thank you for saving my life, miss.”
The hundredth hug. The hundredth smile.
I can hold my back straight for hours
and not feel tired. Atlas would be put to shame!
Holding onto a smile, now that,
takes more than superpowers.

As the human girl is gurnied away, her smile
floats up, up and away to light the clouds,
show night its way. I follow.

When I was younger, the thrill of flight
was almost addictive. I couldn’t stay put on earth.

Up here, in the stratosphere, I remain awhile.
Not as silent as space, but it will suffice.
The arc of a life held together by one crisis,
then another, gets to one after a while.
Not one notch remains on me to mark
what passed below. It has always been so.

How nice Manhattan seems from this angle!
Pinks and grays have smudged away the recent melee.

But, duty cannot wait.
To the watchtower next, patrolling the stars,
pacing the tower’s steely halls,
eyes glued to the fractal dance of the
LED-panel, each flare a call for help,
which I promptly dispatch.
“Ever here, ever vigilant,” has become my motto.

“She was always there when needed,
star-spangled tights and all. What a woman!”
The papers drool over my latest “heroic encounter.”

Great Hera!...A person couldn’t care less
about the semantic niceties of
Immortal and Indestructible,
when only an empty house marks
the end to every day.
So, instead, at shift-end I head
to Christmas Isle to catch the sun’s first ray.

Red claws scuttle over shell hash on a beach
where men may have played at being fauna.
But, no witch’s spell here for me
to compel a scratch from a shell-shard
to ripen, bloom and not wither
to a rusty shield.

The wound always closes
by the time I finish making it.